It is known to use a web browser to view different three-dimensional objects, generally shared among several users and stored on a server, and accessible with a corresponding software application.
When a user, especially in the field of three-dimensional computer-aided design software applications, wants to work with one of these three-dimensional objects, after authenticating himself or login, he must open the object, usually directly from the software application.
Then, the user must identify and launch a specific and relevant application to work with this object, and generally re-authenticate himself for each object he wants to use. Such a procedure is relatively time consuming and leads to many potential errors, because the web design and navigation parts are completely separated.
Product edition systems are known to include Computer-Aided Design or CAD, which relates to software solutions for authoring product design. Similarly, CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM stands for Computer-Aided Manufacturing and typically includes software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations.
A number of products and programs are offered on the market for the design of objects (or parts) or assemblies of objects, forming a product, such as the one provided by Dassault Systèmes under the trademark CATIA. These CAD systems allow a user to construct and manipulate complex three dimensional (3D) modeled objects or assemblies of objects.
These CAD systems manage parts or assemblies of parts as modeled objects, which are mostly specifications of geometry. Specifically, CAD files contain specifications, from which geometry is generated, which in turn allow for a representation to be generated. Geometry and representation may be stored in a single CAD file or multiple ones. Alternatively, they may be stored in the form of indexed and searchable data.
CAD systems include graphic tools for representing the modeled objects to the designers; these tools are dedicated to the display of complex objects—the typical size of a file representing an object in a CAD system being in the range of one Megabyte per part, and an assembly may comprise thousands of parts. A CAD system manages models of objects, which are stored in electronic files. From a CAD systems standpoint, an object is basically a file which comprises at least a name. These files can be stored on databases. Databases are structured to facilitate storage, retrieval, modification, and deletion of data in conjunction with various data-processing operations. Databases generally consist of a file or set of files that can be broken down into records, each of which consist of one or more fields. Fields are the basic units of data storage. Users retrieve database information primarily through queries. Using keywords and sorting commands, users can rapidly search, rearrange, group, and select the field in many records to retrieve or create reports on particular aggregates of data according to the rules of the database management system being used.
CAD systems include graphic tools for representing the modeled objects to the designers. These tools are dedicated to the creation, the display, the modification of complex objects. In particular, the modification of the property of an object, or the part of an object, can be made via the modification of one or more parameter that determines the property of the object.
Objects to be used can equally be objects from software applications to drive production performance and innovation throughout the supply chain, such as the one provided by Dassault Systèmes under the trademark DELMIA, or be objects from software applications to design optimization and manage simulation data, such as the one provided by Dassault Systèmes under the trademark SIMULIA.
All these applications are three-dimensional-based applications and can be simply called three-dimensional applications or 3D applications, in the following of the present patent application.
Moreover, social and collaborative applications such as the one provided by Dassault Systèmes under the trademark ENOVIA also known as Product Data Management (PDM) may incorporate 3D applications of functionalities, for instance for visualizing and managing three-dimensional modeled objects.